TUKTU’S SOFT HEART
These were happy days for Tuktu and Aklak. Tuktu’s only duties were to
cook meals for her father and brother. An Eskimo girl learns these
things very young and Tuktu had been well taught. Aklak spent most of
his time hunting. Their father did little but sit for long hours smoking
and watching the distant hillsides where the reindeer grazed above the
Valley of the Good Spirit. These were lazy, happy days and Kutok was
making the most of them, for the summer was nearly at an end and he knew
that when the herd moved there would be little time for lazing.
Tuktu roamed about picking the flowers that grew in such profusion, and
also hunting for the flocks of young ptarmigan, for she dearly loved to
watch these pretty “Chickens of the North.” Not for the world would
Tuktu have harmed one of them. Not for the world would she have told
her brother Aklak how she felt when he brought in ptarmigan and other
birds for the cooking-pot. But despite the fact that she ate them and
enjoyed the eating, there was all the time in her heart a wee feeling of
sadness, for Tuktu’s heart was the loving heart.
Aklak was a good herder and had a way with the deer which some of the
older herders might well have envied; but there was no one among all the
herders or their families who could go among the deer as freely and
unnoticed as could Tuktu. It was as if she held some strange power over
the deer people; as if they had accepted her as one of their own number.
She could approach the most timid and nervous among the wilder members
of the big herds. As for the sled-deer, they might balk and strike at
others, but never at Tuktu when she harnessed them. She loved them,
every one, and seemingly they knew it.
So it was that Tuktu found her playmates among the wild people, who were
not wild with her. Many a time had she stroked a ptarmigan on the nest.
Many a time had the Arctic Hare fed from her fingers. The sea fowl paid
no attention to her. Love has a strange way of making itself felt among
the wild folk, and the soft heart of Tuktu was soft because of love.
So it was that when she found the home of a Blue Fox, about the entrance
to which four half-grown little foxes were playing, she did not tell her
brother. Each day she would steal away and sit by the entrance to the
den, taking with her bits of meat for the little foxes. How she loved to
see them roll and tumble about her feet. Sometimes two of them would get
hold of the same piece of meat and then there would be a tug of war.
Tuktu’s eyes would dance and she would laugh softly. And then, when one
little fox had succeeded in pulling the meat from the other, she would
give the loser the extra piece which she always had for that purpose.
And a short distance away sat Mother Fox, grinning happily.
While she picked the flowers and played with the foxes, and now and then
mothered a young ptarmigan that had been lost from the flock, she
dreamed of the Valley of the Good Spirit. It seemed such a little
distance to the brow of the nearest hill overlooking that valley that
she couldn’t help but wonder what she would see if she should climb up
there. But not once did the thought of really doing it enter her head.
It was enough for Tuktu that it was forbidden. It was not that she was
afraid. She knew that her father was afraid. She knew that Aklak was
afraid. She knew that they regarded the Good Spirit and the valley where
he lived with reverence and awe. But Tuktu was not afraid. It was enough
for her that the Valley of the Good Spirit was sacred and not to be
approached by other than the deer people. So, no matter how great her
longing to look down from that hilltop, the thought of actually trying
to do such a thing never entered her wildest dreams.
[Illustration]
She would sit for hours looking over toward the valley and wondering
what the deer folk saw therein. Now and again she could see the deer
moving on the upper hills. Once as she was watching them, she said
softly--for she had a way of talking to herself: “I wish I were really a
Tuktu--a caribou.”
“Why?” asked Aklak, who had stolen softly up behind her, just in time to
hear what she said.
“Because then I might go into the Valley of the Good Spirit and I might
even be chosen by the Good Spirit. Who knows?”
Aklak laughed, but it was a good-natured laugh. “It is the reindeer, not
the caribou, who go down into the valley,” said he.
“But the caribou go too,” replied Tuktu quickly, “for only this morning
I saw a band of them heading that way; and after all the reindeer are
but tame caribou.”
“You saw a band this morning!” exclaimed Aklak excitedly, for all that
morning he had been hunting for caribou and had not seen one.
Tuktu nodded. “Yes,” said she. “And Aklak, I’m glad you didn’t see them.
I am glad they have gone where you cannot follow, for I would not like
to have a caribou killed here so near to the Valley of the Good Spirit.”
Aklak opened his mouth for a quick retort, then thought better of it.
Perhaps after all Tuktu was right. Perhaps it were better that there
should be no killing of the deer folk so near the Valley of the Good
Spirit. He remembered that not even the wolves, nor the great Brown Bear
for whom he was named, ever killed there.